Server 2008 R2 VM settings - Hyper-V Environment

I have a Windows 2008 R2 Cluster with 4 nodes running Hyper-V. Each host is a Dell R710 dual quad-core 2.4 xeon CPUs with 32 GB, hard disk is a Dell EqualLogic PS6000

Each node runs about 5-6 VMs, mostly Server 2003 R2 and each VM perform at approximately the same level that they did as physical boxes using dual 2.4Ghz CPUs and 2-4Gb of RAM.

When I create a Server 2008 R2 VM, I'm experiencing severe lag both through RDP and console access to the guest. I've tried tweaking the Processor type and count and giving the VM 4GB of RAM, but it doesn't make a difference.

Performance Monitor doesn't show high usage of CPU, Memory or Disk that would give a reason for this behavior. Are their recommended settings for running 2008 R2 in Hyper-V?

I would check the event logs on the cluster and event logs on your hosts. I have a similar setup and my performance is great. Particularly check to see if all of the hosts are accessing your shared storage

I would check the event logs on the cluster and event logs on your hosts. I have a similar setup and my performance is great. Particularly check to see if all of the hosts are accessing your shared storage properly. Performance goes down the tubes if any of your volumes are using redirected access. This happens when instead of each Hyper-V directly accessing your EqualLogic storage via iSCSI, one or more hosts isn't able to connect so it accesses the VHD files of your guests by making a SMB connection to the node that owns the storage.

You should be using cluster shared volumes. Your shared volume under the EqualLogic Advanced tab should "Allow simultaneous connections from initiators with different IQN names". I personally haven't made the switch to jumbo frames.

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